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Sauce

Green Tomato Sauce

A fermented tomato sauce made with tomatoes, onions, spices, vinegar, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Layer tomatoes, onions, and spices in a kettle.

  2. Cover with vinegar.

  3. Add brown sugar.

  4. Stew for two hours.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and break down into its body and moisture as they cook.
Onions
Add savory depth and body as they soften during the long stew.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and keeps the sauce tangy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Ground mustard
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor that deepens the sauce.
White mustard seed
Adds a mild, tangy bite and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew for two hours. A long, gentle simmer softens the tomatoes and onions and lets the vinegar, sugar, and spices blend into one flavor. Stirring helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the kettle, and the sauce must cook long enough for its texture to thicken and mellow.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mustard, ginger, pepper, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mustard, ginger, pepper, sugar, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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